It might not be inappropriate tempo, but there is a range of acceptable tempos. If you're having trouble at the faster tempo but not the slower that might be important information. You might not need to know it in the middle of a round, but perhaps in a round summary read-out.

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Right, but my point is, once you've danced to a song you should know whether or not it fits your "acceptable tempo" range, and can therefore exclude it from the playlist of potential songs in the future, thereby rendering irrelevant any tempo information that may be displayed on the screen. It doesn't matter if the display says it's 29 MPM or 30 MPM; if it feels too fast I'll take it off the list!

It might not be inappropriate tempo, but there is a range of acceptable tempos. If you're having trouble at the faster tempo but not the slower that might be important information. You might not need to know it in the middle of a round, but perhaps in a round summary read-out.

Click to expand...

I think the round summary read-out is an excellent suggestion! It won't be part of the version that I'm putting the finishing touches on right now, but might very well be part of the next.

Right, but my point is, once you've danced to a song you should know whether or not it fits your "acceptable tempo" range, and can therefore exclude it from the playlist of potential songs in the future, thereby rendering irrelevant any tempo information that may be displayed on the screen. It doesn't matter if the display says it's 29 MPM or 30 MPM; if it feels too fast I'll take it off the list!

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I partially agree - but there could be several reasons for a song to feel fast at a given practice session; E.g., it could be because it is objectively fast (say 30 MPM), or it could be because you were subjectively having a slight off-day (again influenced by numerous factors). For me it would make good sense to be able to "post-evaluate" each session with regards to tempo, as mindputtee suggests.

This app sounds wonderful! Any chance a version can be developed to use directly on a Mac, not just an iPhone? Most of my music is on the computer so it would be perfect to be able to pull from the iTunes library...

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I wrote some AppleScripts to do this on Macs using iTunes back in 2007. One script for Standard, one script for Latin. It even announced the next dance during the pauses. I just tested them last night, and a few things were broken in iTunes 11 (particularly re-shuffling), so I rewrote them from almost-scratch. Here they are. You will have to open them in AppleScript Editor to change the playlist names. I documented them such that it's quite straightforward.

Let me know if this is what you were looking for! (If someone wants Smooth or Rhythm versions, that shouldn't be too difficult either.)

-Alex

Attached Files:

I wrote some AppleScripts to do this on Macs using iTunes back in 2007. One script for Standard, one script for Latin. It even announced the next dance during the pauses. I just tested them last night, and a few things were broken in iTunes 11 (particularly re-shuffling), so I rewrote them from almost-scratch. Here they are. You will have to open them in AppleScript Editor to change the playlist names. I documented them such that it's quite straightforward.

Let me know if this is what you were looking for! (If someone wants Smooth or Rhythm versions, that shouldn't be too difficult either.)

-Alex

Click to expand...

Alex,

Thank you, what a great idea!

I am getting an error message ( Can’t make some data into the expected type." number -1700 to item ) on the VWaltz, will have to play around a little to find the issue but Waltz and Tango play great. If you don't mind, a collective group effort can build upon the awesome start you have shared and nice little script can be created. Thoughts?

If you're getting that error, double-check that you named you changed "Viennese Waltz" in the following linepropertyVWALTZ : "Viennese Waltz"
to whatever you named your playlist. Or that you changed your playlist name to "Viennese Waltz". I was able to reproduce the same error message by intentionally making the name within the quotes not match the name of any playlist in my library.

Anybody can modify the scripts I've made. In fact, almost everyone probably has to, unless they use the exact same playlist-naming scheme that I do. If you want to change song lengths or delays or disable the announcer or modify the announcer's script, or skip Viennese Waltz or Paso Doble, or make any changes, you'll also need to modify the script. (Some words are spelled strangely in the announcer's script, because they are pronounced phonetically.)

The only feature I know I'm missing is fading the music at the end of each song, so I just added that. Here are both scripts again with volume fading. If you desire more changes or features, let me know.

As far as making improvements and redistributing them here as AppleScript files, I'd prefer that you bring your feedback to me, and let me do that. I just like feeling useful, I guess.
If someone wants to re-make these for Windows, or make it into a standalone app, go for it.

-Alex

Attached Files:

If you're getting that error, double-check that you named you changed "Viennese Waltz" in the following linepropertyVWALTZ : "Viennese Waltz"
to whatever you named your playlist. Or that you changed your playlist name to "Viennese Waltz". I was able to reproduce the same error message by intentionally making the name within the quotes not match the name of any playlist in my library.

Anybody can modify the scripts I've made. In fact, almost everyone probably has to, unless they use the exact same playlist-naming scheme that I do. If you want to change song lengths or delays or disable the announcer or modify the announcer's script, or skip Viennese Waltz or Paso Doble, or make any changes, you'll also need to modify the script. (Some words are spelled strangely in the announcer's script, because they are pronounced phonetically.)

The only feature I know I'm missing is fading the music at the end of each song, so I just added that. Here are both scripts again with volume fading. If you desire more changes or features, let me know.

As far as making improvements and redistributing them here as AppleScript files, I'd prefer that you bring your feedback to me, and let me do that. I just like feeling useful, I guess.
If someone wants to re-make these for Windows, or make it into a standalone app, go for it.

-Alex

Click to expand...

Hi Alex,

I did rename the playlist but still get the error message, I'll keep playing around with it. You are being more than reasonable; feedback, improvements and distribution are yours...

Using the Standard portion of the app, I am having problems using the bpm feature. You have bpm listed but I believe that the app is looking for the correct mpm, thus not finding any songs with the proper bpm. Make sense?

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I ran into this as well. Does the app look for the BPM reported by iTunes, or does it calculate them on the fly?

Version 1.1 includes support for both MPM and BPM (same meta tag in iTunes, mind you), as well as support for American Style. It has entered review at the App Store, so I would expect it to be available within the next 24 hours.

Version 1.1 includes support for both MPM and BPM (same meta tag in iTunes, mind you), as well as support for American Style. It has entered review at the App Store, so I would expect it to be available within the next 24 hours.

Version 1.1 includes support for both MPM and BPM (same meta tag in iTunes, mind you), as well as support for American Style. It has entered review at the App Store, so I would expect it to be available within the next 24 hours.

Version 1.1 includes support for both MPM and BPM (same meta tag in iTunes, mind you), as well as support for American Style. It has entered review at the App Store, so I would expect it to be available within the next 24 hours.

I am currently working on making it possible to assign different song lengths to the individual dances, and that will be part of the next release. Also looking into the possibility of picking specific songs for a specific round.

I really like your app as well. I was so impressed with it that I stopped writing my own equivalent app.

I noticed that it prevents my phone from sleeping the display, both when currently playing rounds and when not currently playing rounds. Also, I sometimes place my iPhone in my armband or trouser waistband when I'm running rounds by myself. Unfortunately, with the display on, it is quite easy to accidentally tap the screen. (I know it doesn't sound likely, but it happened.) However, when I turn the display off, the music quickly fades out.
I have therefore two requests: Could you make it so that the display will sleep as normal when inactive? Furthermore, could you make it continue playing without interruption when I turn off the display?

I really like your app as well. I was so impressed with it that I stopped writing my own equivalent app.

I noticed that it prevents my phone from sleeping the display, both when currently playing rounds and when not currently playing rounds. Also, I sometimes place my iPhone in my armband or trouser waistband when I'm running rounds by myself. Unfortunately, with the display on, it is quite easy to accidentally tap the screen. (I know it doesn't sound likely, but it happened.) However, when I turn the display off, the music quickly fades out.
I have therefore two requests: Could you make it so that the display will sleep as normal when inactive? Furthermore, could you make it continue playing without interruption when I turn off the display?

Thanks!

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Hi Alex,

Thank you for the feedback! I really like your scripts as well - never would have thought that such an elegant and simple (in the best sense of the word) solution could be achieved for the Mac. No need for me to try writing an application there

As for the sleeping issue: I have really cracked my skull on this one. The challenge is that the app uses timers to transition between states (playing, fading, paused, stopped), and those timers are put to sleep as well, when the display turns off. I have not entirely given up a solution, but it's kinda tricky...